WEYMOUTH, DORSET
Two weekends ago we spent two wonderful days exploring Weymouth, Dorset, and its environs as we were visiting Celia’s mom, Liz Skipton. A very generous hostess, she escorted (drove us) around the coast, the charming seaside town of Weymouth, and then into the county seat Dorchester, which I hadn’t realized was so nearby. Lucy Russell and I visited Dorchester in 2003 when we were on our literary and gardens tour of southwest England.
I was glad to have a chance to explore the area again where Thomas Hardy lived and wrote again. Hardy called this area “Wessex” and in his novels and later poems he memorializes its farmlands and villages. I imagine it hasn’t changed all that much in 150 years. The countryside is still rather untouched by modernity and when we visited the little churchyard where Hardy’s heart is buried next to his wife’s grave and many other Hardys of earlier generations, it felt as if we were frozen in time somehow. I could almost hear Hardy’s brother and father playing their viola and violin inside the sanctuary. Next we visited the cottage where Hardy grew up, bumping our heads against the low door frames. It is still surrounded by woods and farmland.
Max Gate is the house that Hardy designed, and where he lived with his wife for some four decades. There we had cream tea in the drawing room and I met the caretaker who lives on the premises, a young woman from Arkansas who is writing her dissertation on Hardy’s folklore. She’s become the local expert on Hardy she says, and hardly has time to do research as she’s called on to give lectures about the still famous and popular author. If you’re interested at all in getting a flavor of late 19th century rural England, Hardy is a great novelist to turn to. I think of him as the Dickens of the West Country—and I recommend his early novel Far From the Madding Crowd as well as the tragic The Mayor of Casterbridge, which features the town of Dorchester itself.
Beth
Two weekends ago we spent two wonderful days exploring Weymouth, Dorset, and its environs as we were visiting Celia’s mom, Liz Skipton. A very generous hostess, she escorted (drove us) around the coast, the charming seaside town of Weymouth, and then into the county seat Dorchester, which I hadn’t realized was so nearby. Lucy Russell and I visited Dorchester in 2003 when we were on our literary and gardens tour of southwest England.
I was glad to have a chance to explore the area again where Thomas Hardy lived and wrote again. Hardy called this area “Wessex” and in his novels and later poems he memorializes its farmlands and villages. I imagine it hasn’t changed all that much in 150 years. The countryside is still rather untouched by modernity and when we visited the little churchyard where Hardy’s heart is buried next to his wife’s grave and many other Hardys of earlier generations, it felt as if we were frozen in time somehow. I could almost hear Hardy’s brother and father playing their viola and violin inside the sanctuary. Next we visited the cottage where Hardy grew up, bumping our heads against the low door frames. It is still surrounded by woods and farmland.Max Gate is the house that Hardy designed, and where he lived with his wife for some four decades. There we had cream tea in the drawing room and I met the caretaker who lives on the premises, a young woman from Arkansas who is writing her dissertation on Hardy’s folklore. She’s become the local expert on Hardy she says, and hardly has time to do research as she’s called on to give lectures about the still famous and popular author. If you’re interested at all in getting a flavor of late 19th century rural England, Hardy is a great novelist to turn to. I think of him as the Dickens of the West Country—and I recommend his early novel Far From the Madding Crowd as well as the tragic The Mayor of Casterbridge, which features the town of Dorchester itself.
Beth
Glad to hear you enjoyed of HarHardy country! Looks like you folks had relatively nice weather.
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